that's just stuff and nonsense: automated fun of the day. 9-18-2008.

I finished this month's Autowin Book Club selection Lying, by Lauren Slater, last week. Some parts made my stomach hurt, some parts were brilliant, some parts made me angry/violent/conflicted. I found it personally compelling on many levels (writer, storyteller, friend, sanity). We'll talk about it on Monday September 22nd, 'cause Allie says talking about literature isn't fun on the weekends, but seems (relatively) fun when confronted with the slings and arrows of ordinary work on Monday morning. Does that work for everyone? I hope so, 'cause you know how RuPaul feels about working. [see photo, left]

Coincidentally, the 22nd is the day before my 5,560th birthday. On the 23rd I'll be moving into a nursing home to eat canned peaches w/cottage cheese and moan about how I could've been a famous writer of famous bestselling novels if I'd just really wanted it more. We can watch Cocoon and Fried Green Tomatoes and talk about kids these days while scratching our wigs, and if any of my "friends" at the "home" say "You look awfully young for a geriatric!" then I'll just spit pudding in their face and say, "Well, now you taste like pudding." And that'll be the end of that conversation.

Speaking of being a senior citizen, Natalie and I caught the early bird special 4:30 show of "Bedbugs" at the New York Musical Theater Festival Wednesday afternoon, starring Alex Vega on drums and a bunch of actors and actresses playing all the other non-drum-related parts, e.g., singing the songs, performing lines, dancing. It's like an 80's glam rock musical green glittery homosexy spectacular of synthy poppy loveliness. Go see it.

Also, a brief Autowin PSA ... bitch magazine is gonna go under if they don't raise $45,000 by October 15th. I don't know if you read it, but I'm gonna be really depressed if it goes under, please do what you can to help. As you're probs aware, if I jump off the roof of The Olive Garden Times Square I will no longer be able to blog, 'cause I'll have no arms and therefore no fingers and how can I type or be a practicing homosexual without fingers? Exactly.

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quote: "In real life, every day you might come to a new conclusion about yourself and about the reasoning behind your behavior, and you can tell yourself that this knowledge will make all the difference. But in all likelihood, you're going to keep doing the same old things. You'll still be the same person. You'll still cling to your destructive, debilitating habits because your emotional tie to them is so strong--so much stronger than any dime-store insight you might come up with--that the stupid things you do are really the only things you've got that keep you centered and connected." (Elizabeth Wurtzel, Now More Again)

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links:
1. it makes me sad that someone so talented and so brilliant is no longer with us and will not be writing any more words or footnotes again. it makes me sad that the world was too much, or not enough, or just was, I guess, for someone the world needed -- needs -- so much, and especially now.
-R.I.P David Foster Wallace (@n+1)
-in his honour, playboy has reprinted david foster wallace's first piece of fiction: Late Night (@playboy)
2. publishing: once doomed, now fucked. the end of book publishing in america. (@nymag)
3. "the income for top people in a wide variety of occupations that do not require a college degree is higher than the average income for many occupations that require a b.a.": are too many people going to college?(@the american)
4. america's next top model recap: pee up or shut up (@fourfour)
5. haviland. once again I am posting a link that links to the Sarah Palin vlogs. if you miss this one too, we're not friends anymore.: Sara Benicasa as Sarah Palin (@lustylady)
6. how people read on the web - like dumbshits. online literacy is a lesser kind. (@the chronicle of higher ed.)
7. babar! freeing the elephants (@the new yorker)
8. nerve does the 50 buzziest blog posts of all time, which includes this incredible look at the photoshopping of faith hill's redbook cover i must've missed the first time around, like before i realized jezebel was awesome. amazingly enough, my fight with that woman was not on the list. (@nerve)
9. this is why i left sarah lawrence: reforming the requirement-free curriculum (@inside higher ed)
10. You are forcing me to remember when all I want is to just forget you. (@achtung baby)
11. laramie given an epilogue a decade later. (@nytimes)
12. Lindsay Lohan and the New Definition of "Out" (@after ellen)